International Business Times - Ancient shipwreck graveyard from Roman and Medieval eras discovered near Greece

Shipwrecks
were the stuff of lore around the craggy coasts of Fourni, a Greek
archipelago close to Turkey in the eastern Aegean Sea. Generations of
local fishermen and sponge divers had seen piles of ancient pottery
collecting algae on the seafloor. Last month, a group of marine
archaeologists finally investigated the waters, and their wealth of
findings far exceeded expectations.

During the very first dive of the expedition, the team found the
remains of a late Roman-period wreck strewn with sea grass in shallow
water. By day 5, the researchers had discovered evidence of nine more
sunken ships. The next day, they found another six. By the time the
13-day survey was finished, the divers had located 22 shipwrecks— some more than 2,500 years old — that had never been scientifically documented before.

"I think we were all shocked,"
said Peter Campbell, co-director of the project from the U.S.-based RPM
Nautical Foundation. "We were expecting three or four wrecks, and we
would have been very happy."

Just how many more wrecks are hidden around Fourni — which lies
between the islands of Samos and Icaria — is anyone's guess, Campbell
said. The expedition turned up doomed vessels from the Archaic period
(700-480 B.C.) to the late medieval period (16th century A.D.), from
depths of 180 feet (55 meters) to as shallow as 10 feet (3 m). And yet,
this initial survey covered merely 17 square miles(44 square
kilometers), just 5 percent of the archipelago's coast. Previously,
about 180 ancient shipwrecks
had been well-documented in all of Greece's territorial waters. These
new discoveries add 12 percent to the total number of known wrecks, the
leaders of the project said.

"In a survey, you don't really choose what you're going to find — you
just dive," George Koutsouflakis, the Greek director of the survey,
from the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, told Live Science. "We knew
already that Fourni was a hub in navigation in the Aegean, so we had
some expectations, but the results surprised us. The importance of this
place was underestimated."

Though Fourni didn't have major cities, it was notable in the ancient
world for its location along Aegean crossing routes, both east-west and
north-south. Early Imperial Roman sources say that Fourni was very
prosperous, had a robust population and had marble mines in full
operation, Koutsouflakis said. But mentions of the archipelago in late
Roman texts are scant, which is why the divers were surprised that about
half of the wrecks found in the survey date to this period.

"By the late Roman period, we don't really know anything about the
island," Koutsouflakis said. "Fourni is hardly mentioned in the sources
of that time. You see that the shipwrecks tell us a more nuanced story.
The island must have maintained importance as a harbor site."

The main component of these shipwrecks, wood, isn't likely to survive
centuries at the bottom of the sea, unless it is buried in mud without
oxygen to fuel decomposition.
So far, the wrecks that have been found around Fourni bear few traces
of the vessels themselves (though future underwater excavations may
change that). Instead, the divers documented messy piles of lost cargo,
mostly transport vessels like amphoras, which sank with their ships close to the cliffs on Fourni's coast.

22 ancient shipwrecks found off Greece (LiveScience)

"A lot of times, you can see near the point of impact where the ships
must have crashed, and then you have this scatter pile raining down the
underwater slope of the cliff," Campbell said. "These aren't the nice
ship-shaped piles of amphoras
that you sometimes get in ships that wreck far out at sea. We probably
do have some of those, but they're probably farther away from shore."

Campbell said that of the 22 newly
discovered wrecks, three have unique cargos that have never been found
before in Mediterranean shipwrecks: a trove of Archaic pots from nearby
Samos that was probably destined for Cyprus, but didn't make it very
far; a group of huge second-century A.D. amphoras from the Black Sea
region; and a cache of "Sinopian carrots," or amphoras that come from
Sinop on the Black Sea coast of Turkey and, as the name implies, are
shaped vaguely like carrots.

Koutsouflakis and Campbell said they intend to go back to Fourni,
equipped with underwater robots and other technologies, to search for
more wrecks before they plan any underwater excavations. For now, they
have taken artifact samples ashore for analysis at a laboratory in
Athens, Greece, partly to try to find out what was on board — wine, oil,
fish sauce — the ill-fated ships that met their demise at Fourni.

In my book, Some Things Strange And Sinister I could not resist referring to this little story. The location -and story, of course- is one I would like to visit one day, perhaps as part of a TV programme. We can all live in hope!

But here, slightly expanded on, is the chapter from STS&S.

**************************************************************

Don’t
get me wrong, I find the books of John Keel [1-4] to be very good reads; they
snatch you up and string you along and are very
difficult to put down.Just look at the
chapter headings in one of my favourites, Strange Creatures From Time &
Space – “A World Filled with Ambling Nightmares”, “The Uglies and the Nasties”,
“Demon Dogs and Phantom Cats,” “Creatures from the Black Lagoon,” “Winged
Weirdos,” “The Great Sea Serpent of Silver Lake, New York” –and they go on.

I love them!

Whereas dear old Charles Fort either muddled
his reference notes and dates by accident or deliberately [I think the former],
Keel goes one better –he quotes incidents from magazine sources he has read but
seems never to have followed-up to check on.In some cases he gives no
original source.

I suppose that’s fine if all you want to read
is a good tale that leaves you wondering “was that really true –surely he’d
never put it in a book if it wasn’t?”Oh, the innocent days!However, if
you are one of those people who has
to find the truth whether good or bad and you are willing to work hard to get
to the real source, then this is fun but very frustrating.This latter type of person is known to
Ufologists, Forteans and their kind as a “kill-joy pain-in-the-ass” or
“kijopitas”.My name is kijopitas!

One paragraph in Strange Creatures From Time
& Space that intrigued me for years related to an incident from the (possibly,
Keel wasn’t even definite on this!) 8th Century:-

There are two things of interest here.Firstly, if–if—Keel was referring to the
incidents I think he was, and the previous paragraph had the details almost
right, then we are talking about the 8th century.Keel was, like many after him, basing his
account on one of the biggest offenders in the “I don’t need to quote sources”
brigade –Harold T. Wilkins [5] but it is worth mentioning the Mesopotamian
incident.

A 9th century document from Mesopotamia reports that, some time “before” AD 774, the
Abdin Rock region was the scene of between “twenty to 100” people being killed
by mysterious beasts.The animals were
“similar to wolves but with ears like a horse and a ridge of bristly hair along
their spines” and they apparently entered houses in villages from which they
carried off children, probably adults also, though children would have been the
easier prey.These creatures
demonstrated no fear of men and would even turn and attack anyone who was
chasing them.

I have yet to see one writer on mysteries
positively identify these “mystery beasts” –of course, doing so would negate
the “mystery” aspect.So, let me tell
you now that, as a naturalist, the description is clear enough –hyaena.It sounds like the beasts had obviously been
kept by humans, as demonstrated by their lack of fear of Man [a very bad sign] and entering native huts
in Africa to run off with children or adults is not unknown.The behaviour, which is unusual,seems to indicate these animals must have been starving
and humans were easy prey [6 & 7].

Now, if the Black
Beast was seen around this period we must be talking early-to-mid 8th
century.This brings me to the second
interesting point, for me.

Along with
Professor Alayne Street-Perrott, of the Exotic Cat Project, University of Wales Swansea,
I have been looking at the history of menageries from ancient times up until
the 1970s.We are both aware of reports
of “black beasts” attacking and killing livestock and people.

For example;
around AD 940, in the area around Flixton, Yorkshire,
a large black animal with a long tail, “glowing eyes” [reflecting light] and
nasty smell was killing livestock, dogs and people.The details that existseem to very strongly point to a black
leopard –oddthough this sounds, such
animals were regularly given as gifts between royalty or powerful chiefs.Having been kept by humans there would be no
real fear of these.Sheep make easy
meals with hardly any effort required to chase or kill.Dogs are, unfortunately, something the
leopard has a keen taste for [8].

Georg von Frankenstein 1531, Nieder-Beerbach

So, when someone
mentions a “black beast” on a killing spree around the mid-8th
century I need to chase down the source and see whether a big cat was involved
or not.Well, for about 15 years I was
searching any records or source possible for references to a “black beast” and
came up with none.Then it occurred to
me that, perhaps, the expression “black beast” was not referring to the animals colour but to a creature being evil
–as in “he was a black-hearted swine”?

Obviously a search
for statues built inside tombs was
difficult and I gave up on trying to find any such thing.So, in desperation I did what I should have done at the very outset:
looked at castles in Darmstadt.This came up with a surprise or two.

The village of Frankenstein sits on the
northern edge of the Magnetberg mountain range near Darmstadt and would have
been a forested, wild region at one time with deer, boar, bears, lynx and much
more.A friend sent me the following
information that is handed out to those interested in attending the yearly
“Halloween Bash”:-

“Originally the residence of Lord Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein

during
the 1500s,Frankenstein
Castle’s myths and
legends overshadow

its
actual history.Legend has it that von
Frankenstein exchanged his

soul for
the secrets to eternal life.He was
allegedly found dead in his

laboratory,foaming at the mouth and surrounded by various body parts

he had
stolen from area cemeteries….many people believe that writer

Mary
Shelley heard this tale during a trip to Germany in 1814 and used

it [and
the castle] as the inspiration for her famous novel.”

Tourist
information.Wonderful stuff.Actually, the castle is mentioned in
documents dating back to 1252, though recent document discoveries in Leipzig mention “burg
Frankenstein” in the year AD 948.

The name
“Frankenstein” probably refers to the Franks while “stein” means stone
–probably indicating and ancient site had probably existed there long before
the 10th century.When
someone has the word “von” in their names it simply indicates their
originsLudwig von Dresden simply means
Ludwig from Dresden.Just as English names indicate ancestral
employment –“Cutter” probably being from the cloth trade, ”Stockman” someone
who had been involved in livestock trade and, of course, ”Hooper” being someone
who put the hoops around wooden beer barrels.

Every source
indicates that Johann Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein [1673-1734], an educated
physician was a mad scientist, using the isolated castle to carry out
experiments in alchemy and sought the answer to the ultimate challenge to
scienceof the day –immortality.It is said that Johann gathered parts of
butchered animals and human corpses but not to sew together and charge with
electricity but to boil down in large vats; muscle, skin,bone, hair, blood,
organs –more strange and sinisterthan
anything you’ll encounter in the dark.And human to boot.The
villagers(there had to be angry villagers,right?) got wind of things, probably
quite literally, and exiled him from the town.

It seems to be
documented that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, according to some but I’ve found
nothing.We know that she and her
husband Percy Bysshe Shelley visited France
and Switzerland in 1816 and
that while staying near Geneva,
their friend Lord Byron issued a challenge to write a ghost story. While at Eton college Mary had been fascinated by the electrical
experiments of Luigi Calvani –creating electric shocks to make a dead frogs legs
jerk.That, we know from her own words, is where she got the inspiration
for Frankenstein, though the name may have been one she had heard while on her
European tour.

So, all
of that is pure bunkum.However, a well
known traveller and collector of stories, John Keel may have visited the castle
and gotten the details mixed up.A von Frankenstein did fight a beast and die from his wounds.

George von Frankenstein was the son of
Phillip von Frankenstein and Margarethe Boeckle.George died in 1531 –the 16thnot8th
century.The legend has it that, in a
river called Katzenborn, near to Nieder-Beerbach, lived a dragon that spent
each day terrorizing the locality.As in
all such stories, the only way the villagers could pacify the dragon and make
it return to the river was to sacrifice the most beautiful young woman in the
valley.On this particular occasion the
sacrifice was to be the “rose of the valley,” Anne Marie.

Now, it turned out that George secretly loved
Anne Marie and when he returned from a military expedition, heard what was to
take place.George, still clad in his
armour, arrived in time and fought the dragon in a mighty and long battle.As the opportunity presented itself, George
dealt the dragon a death-blow, sending the dragon twisting in agony.Knight George had saved Anne Marie but, as it
writhed in its death-throes, the dragon curled its tail around George’s leg and
jabbed his knee with a venom from a spur on its tail-tip.

George was returned to the castle where he
died.What happened to Anne Marie –who
knows.Here is the interesting part; George
was buried in Nieder-Beerbach and his tomb is located in the town churchyard
–the tomb is carved and features a knight stepping on the head of a dragon, with
the creature’s tail wrapped around the hero’s leg!Superstitious people confused Knight George
with Saint George.

Whether the “dragon” symbolized a real beast
or a pagan enemy we cannot say.It may
even be that George died after being bitten by some animal [ with rabies] – a bear or any
one of half a dozen I could come up with. Even an exotic is not out of the
question since crocodiles are recorded living in the wild in Britain.

But at least I now know that there was a
knight who died and that the beast said to be involved was a dragon –dragons
looking like serpents which represented the Biblical evil in Adam and Eve and
thusly “black-hearted”.Short story, long
explanation!

It has often been said that if a genuine extra terrestrial spacecraft and aliens were filmed and posted to the internet (especially You Tube) no one would believe it. The same applies to genuine Sasquatch or even unknown sea creature footage/photos.

With findings in space no one is that interested because the internet prefers to promote "floating spoon on Mars" or "Buddha statue on Mars" or even "Imps"/"Creature" or now a bear....a feckin bear. WHAT does it eat -rock? Dust? In a subterranean jungle world and just pops out now and again for fresh air.

Seriously, I have no idea if the person involved has a mental disorder, a sense of humour or GENUINELY believes this crap but it's far more important than water or oxygen found off-Earth, right?

AN alien investigator has called for a United
Nations probe into "discoveries of life on Mars" amid claims Nasa is
ignoring "evidence" of animals on the Red Planet, including the latest
so-called discovery - a bear.

Is this a bear or just an optical illusion?An image taken from Nasa's online database
of Mars photographs has been posted online by UFO hunters amid claims
it "clearly" shows a bear or other four-legged mammal walking on the
surface of the Red Planet.

One of them, Scott C Waring, who edits website UFO Sightings Daily, is convinced it is a bear and the real deal.

He
posts, on an almost daily basis an array of the Nasa images - which are
taken by its 4WD Curiosity Rover currently exploring the Martian
surface and beamed back to Earth - and points out what he says are
"aliens, crabs, statues, buildings, other objects, and even crashed
UFOs" hidden among the rocks.
Of the latest find, he said: "This
creature has real hair as seen from the shadows around its body. That
means its not a statue, but a living creature.

"This bear-like animal was discovered by Paranormal Crucible of Youtube.

NASA

Zoomed in: Mammal on Mars or odd rock formation?

GETTY

The real thing back home on planet Earth"He has been making some great discoveries lately and this one takes that cake.

"I took the screenshots above directly from the NASA URL he gave, and I confirm, it is there."
Paranormal
Crucible itself made no claim of it being a bear, but suggested it was a
possible "hybrid rodent" or prarie dog-type creature.

The channel is also convinced it is proof of well-evolved animals roaming the Red Planet.
The narrator said: "It would appear, judging by this official Nasa image, that Mars does indeed have a species of rodent.

"But
whatever this strange creature truly is, it confirms yet again that
exotic Martian life does really exist on the Red Planet."

NASA•UFOSIGHTINGSDAILY

Bear or monkey? Scott Waring has coloured it brown and added a tail, which bears don't have

It is a strict policy that if you make a comment, an argument, against something I have posted you USE your name. Silly pseudonyms are not allowed because (a) it allows spammers and flamers in and (b) WHY be anonymous?

You decide.

BUT to answer a point....I was a BIG supporter of Ghost Adventures and I always made that point in my postings. So, "Unknown" -YOU do YOUR research.

Nick Groff going back to Bobby Mackey's after SWEARING to his wife never to go back because of the evil there that followed him home....and now he's going back for another show. Fakery.

Now, on EVERY "paranormal" programme we do not hear about ghosts just "towering black shadowmen", "demons", "Satan" popping up every couple minutes (busy guy for a being that NEVER existed in the Bible (no "fallen angel" or Devil mentioned) until much later versions were re-written. 666 -the mark of the Beast (Satan)...no. That is NOT the alleged "number of the beast" -do research.

Insects and dust particles, spider webs DO NOT count as "manifestations of spirit energy".

You REALLY believe that gawd awful acting of Zak and Billy (that seasoned ghost hunter who now screams if he hears a noise) being possessed?? Really???

Their Halloween in Ireland special -a cat call...."a banshee".....Nick records a fox scream when he's in the tower.....its a tortured woman screaming.

EVERY single location has "evil", "Demons" or some feckin' "portal" or "doorway to hell" -if the Devil never existed then Hell (both created to keep Christian followers inline) certainly did not.

It's Trash TV to have on in the background. From what it promised it has given us so many negatives -the Paranormal/haunting programmes already mentioned, but also "challenging" and hurling abuse at "spirits"....oh, and "demons". And if I hear of one more recording of a "little girl" ghost or EVPs of said little girl saying "Mommy mommy" I will scream. She's busier than Satan.

I can no longer trust the original Ghost Adventures documentary even -I cannot locate the physics professor who commented on the poltergeist video!

Three men alone...but with second film crew and staff....YOU want to stand up for them? You go ahead but I am NOT going to champion fakery or those other TV shows ""This program is for entertainment purposes only" -do you ever read that big sign at the beginning? Ghost Adventures ranks alongside Most Haunted in my opinion -a bit of time wasting TV.

I could go on and on but Ghost Adventures has finished as a subject for this blog. You want to worship Bagans go ahead. Believe what you want but do not ask me to drop my IQ level that low.

The baffling and strange behaviors of black
holes have become somewhat less mysterious recently, with new
observations from NASA's Explorer missions Swift and the Nuclear
Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The two space telescopes
caught a supermassive black hole in the midst of a giant eruption of
X-ray light, helping astronomers address an ongoing puzzle: How do
supermassive black holes flare?

The results suggest that supermassive black holes send out beams of
X-rays when their surrounding coronas -- sources of extremely energetic
particles -- shoot, or launch, away from the black holes.
"This is the first time we have been able to link the launching of
the corona to a flare," said Dan Wilkins of Saint Mary's University in
Halifax, Canada, lead author of a new paper on the results appearing in
the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "This will help us understand how supermassive black holes power some of the brightest objects in the universe."

Supermassive black holes don't give off any light themselves, but
they are often encircled by disks of hot, glowing material. The gravity
of a black hole pulls swirling gas into it, heating this material and
causing it to shine with different types of light. Another source of
radiation near a black hole is the corona. Coronas are made up of highly
energetic particles that generate X-ray light, but details about their
appearance, and how they form, are unclear.

Astronomers think coronas have one of two likely configurations. The
"lamppost" model says they are compact sources of light, similar to
light bulbs, that sit above and below the black hole, along its rotation
axis. The other model proposes that the coronas are spread out more
diffusely, either as a larger cloud around the black hole, or as a
"sandwich" that envelops the surrounding disk of material like slices of
bread. In fact, it's possible that coronas switch between both the
lamppost and sandwich configurations.
The new data support the "lamppost" model -- and demonstrate, in the
finest detail yet, how the light-bulb-like coronas move. The
observations began when Swift, which monitors the sky for cosmic
outbursts of X-rays and gamma rays, caught a large flare coming from the
supermassive black hole called Markarian 335, or Mrk 335, located 324
million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pegasus.
This supermassive black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy, was
once one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky.

"Something very strange happened in 2007, when Mrk 335 faded by a
factor of 30. What we have found is that it continues to erupt in flares
but has not reached the brightness levels and stability seen before,"
said Luigi Gallo, the principal investigator for the project at Saint
Mary's University. Another co-author, Dirk Grupe of Morehead State
University in Kentucky, has been using Swift to regularly monitor the
black hole since 2007.

In September 2014, Swift caught Mrk 335 in a huge flare. Once Gallo
found out, he sent a request to the NuSTAR team to quickly follow up on
the object as part of a "target of opportunity" program, where the
observatory's previously planned observing schedule is interrupted for
important events. Eight days later, NuSTAR set its X-ray eyes on the
target, witnessing the final half of the flare event.

After careful scrutiny of the data, the astronomers realized they
were seeing the ejection, and eventual collapse, of the black hole's
corona.

"The corona gathered inward at first and then launched upwards like a
jet," said Wilkins. "We still don't know how jets in black holes form,
but it's an exciting possibility that this black hole's corona was
beginning to form the base of a jet before it collapsed."

How could the researchers tell the corona moved? The corona gives off
X-ray light that has a slightly different spectrum -- X-ray "colors" --
than the light coming from the disk around the black hole. By analyzing
a spectrum of X-ray light from Mrk 335 across a range of wavelengths
observed by both Swift and NuSTAR, the researchers could tell that the
corona X-ray light had brightened -- and that this brightening was due
to the motion of the corona.

Coronas can move very fast. The corona associated with Mrk 335,
according to the scientists, was traveling at about 20 percent the speed
of light. When this happens, and the corona launches in our direction,
its light is brightened in an effect called relativistic Doppler
boosting.

Putting this all together, the results show that the X-ray flare from this black hole was caused by the ejected corona.

"The nature of the energetic source of X-rays we call the corona is
mysterious, but now with the ability to see dramatic changes like this
we are getting clues about its size and structure," said Fiona Harrison,
the principal investigator of NuSTAR at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, who was not affiliated with the study.

Many other black hole brainteasers remain. For example, astronomers
want to understand what causes the ejection of the corona in the first
place.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in
partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space
Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp.,
Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley,
and the official data archive is at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics
Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission's ground
station and a mirror archive. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

FAIRBANKS,
ALASKA—Archaeologist Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks,
and geneticists Dennis O’Rourke and Justin Tackney of the University of
Utah have analyzed mitochondrial DNA recovered from the remains of two
infants found at the Upward Sun River site in Interior Alaska.

The
cremated remains of a three-year-old child were also recovered at the
site, but they did not yield any genetic material. “These infants are
the earliest human remains in northern North America and they carry
distinctly Native American lineages.

These genetic variations had not
previously been known to have existed this far north and speak to the
early genetic diversity of the time,” O’Rourke said in a press release.
O’Rourke adds that “there had to be a period of isolation for these
distinctive Native American lineages to have evolved away from their
Asian ancestors. We believe that was in Beringia.”

Human remains older
than 8,000 years have been found at only eight sites in North America,
and all five major Native American lineages have been found in them.
“That indicates they were present in the early population in Beringia
that gave rise to all modern Native Americans,” Tackney explained.

Very interesting posting over at Archaerology http://archaeology.org/news/3832-151027-alaska-infant-dna
so next time some loud-mouth shouts out that Native Americans are a "minority" it might be worth pointing out that their native lineages can be traced back 11,500 years. Loud-mouths can probably only be traced back a few hundred!

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has made the first in situ detection of
oxygen molecules outgassing from a comet, a surprising observation that
suggests they were incorporated into the comet during its formation.
Rosetta has been studying Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for over a
year and has detected an abundance of different gases pouring from its
nucleus. Water vapour, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are the most
prolific, with a rich array of other nitrogen-, sulphur- and
carbon-bearing species, and even ‘noble gases’ also recorded.

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the Universe, but the simplest molecular version of the gas, O2, has proven surprisingly hard to track down, even in star-forming clouds, because it is highly reactive and readily breaks apart to bind with other atoms and molecules.

For example, oxygen atoms can combine with hydrogen atoms on cold dust grains to form water, or a free oxygen split from O2 by ultraviolet radiation can recombine with an O2 molecule to form ozone (O3).

Despite its detection on the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, O2 had been missing in the inventory of https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1852083566641563826#editor/target=post;postID=6708866505507146432volatile species associated with comets until now.

“We weren’t really expecting to detect O2 at the comet – and
in such high abundance – because it is so chemically reactive, so it was
quite a surprise,” says Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern, and
principal investigator of the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and
Neutral Analysis instrument, ROSINA.

“It’s also unanticipated because there aren’t very many examples of the detection of interstellar O2.
And thus, even though it must have been incorporated into the comet
during its formation, this is not so easily explained by current Solar
System formation models.”

The team analysed more than 3000 samples collected around the comet between September 2014 and March 2015 to identify the O2. They determined an abundance of 1–10% relative to H2O,
with an average value of 3.80 ± 0.85%, an order of magnitude higher
than predicted by models describing the chemistry in molecular clouds.

The amount of molecular oxygen detected showed a strong relationship to
the amount of water measured at any given time, suggesting that their
origin on the nucleus and release mechanism are linked. By contrast, the
amount of O2 seen was poorly correlated with carbon monoxide and molecular nitrogen, even though they have a similar volatility to O2. In addition, no ozone was detected.

Comet on 18 October 2015 – NavCam

Over the six-month study period, Rosetta was inbound towards the Sun
along its orbit, and orbiting as close as 10–30 km from the nucleus.
Despite the decreasing distance to the Sun, the O2/H2O ratio remained constant over time, and it also did not change with Rosetta’s longitude or latitude over the comet.

In more detail, the O2/H2O ratio was seen to decrease for high H2O abundances, an observation that might be influenced by surface water ice produced in the observed daily sublimation–condensation process.

The team explored the possibilities to explain the presence and consistently high abundance of O2 and
its relationship to water, as well as the lack of ozone, by first
considering photolysis and radiolysis of water ice over a range of
timescales.

In photolysis, photons break bonds between molecules, whereas radiolysis
involves more energetic photons or fast electrons and ions depositing
energy into ice and ionising molecules – a process observed on icy moons
in the outer Solar System, and in Saturn’s rings. Either process can,
in principle, lead to the formation and liberation of molecular oxygen.

Radiolysis will have operated over the billions of years that the comet spent in the Kuiper Belt and led to the build-up of O2
to a few metres depth. But these top layers must all have been removed
in the time since the comet moved into its inner Solar System orbit,
ruling this out as the source of the O2 seen today.

More recent generation of O2 via radiolysis and photolysis by
solar wind particles and UV photons should only have occurred in the
top few micrometres of the comet.

“But if this was the primary source of the O2 then we would have expected to see a decrease in the O2/H2O
ratio as this layer was removed during the six-month timespan of our
observations,” says Andre Bieler of the University of Michigan and lead
author of the paper describing the new results in the journal Nature this week.

“The instantaneous generation of O2 also seems unlikely, as that should lead to variable O2 ratios under different illumination conditions. Instead, it seems more likely that primordial O2 was somehow incorporated into the comet’s ices during its formation, and is being released with the water vapour today.”

In one scenario, gaseous O2 would first be incorporated into
water ice in the early protosolar nebula stage of our Solar System.
Chemical models of protoplanetary discs predict that high abundances of
gaseous O2 could be available in the comet forming zone, but
rapid cooling from temperatures above –173ºC to less than –243ºC would
be required to form water ice with O2 trapped on dust grains. The grains would then have to be incorporated into the comet without being chemically altered.

“Other possibilities include the Solar System being formed in an
unusually warm part of a dense molecular cloud, at temperatures of
10–20ºC above the –263ºC or so typically expected for such clouds,” says
Ewine van Dishoeck of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, co-author
of the paper.
“This is still consistent with estimates for the comet formation
conditions in the outer solar nebula, and also with previous findings at
Rosetta’s comet regarding the low abundance of N2.”

Alternatively, radiolysis of icy dust grains could have taken place
prior to the comet’s accretion into a larger body. In this case, the O2
would remain trapped in the voids of the water ice on the grains while
the hydrogen diffused out, preventing the reformation of O2 to water, and resulting in an increased and stable level of O2 in the solid ice.

Incorporation of such icy grains into the nucleus could explain the observed strong correlation with H2O observed at the comet today.

“Regardless of how it was made, the O2 was also somehow protected during the accretion stage of the comet: this must have happened gently to avoid the O2 being destroyed by further chemical reactions,” adds Kathrin.

“This is an intriguing result for studies both within and beyond the
comet community, with possible implications for our models of Solar
System evolution,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.

Mystery of the deep: Tourist baffled by bizarre SEA MONSTER captured on camera in Corfu

Harvey Robertson was on a boat trip and took the pictures inside a cave

He only noticed the animal in the water when he looked at his snaps later

Experts have been unable to identify the creature which looks mythological

But a Scottish tourist was left in shock after unwittingly capturing the image of a bizarre sea creature in his holiday snaps.

Harvey Robertson, 52, was on a boat cruise with his family in Corfu when he took a number of photographs inside a sea cave.

He held the camera over the side of the boat to take pictures of the sea.

But when he lifted his camera back up, Robertson later realised a mysterious creature had appeared in one of the frames.

Robertson said: 'I have no idea what it could have been, I have never seen anything like it.

'I caught the
picture by accident. I was in a sea cave on a small boat about 20 miles
south of Albania on the west coast of Greece.

'I
was trying to capture the water colour and was not looking at the
water, the flash went off. I only saw the creature when looking back
through my pics.'

'The creature, that has so far been unable to be identified by experts, evokes images of Greek mythology.'

Harvey Robertson was taking photographs of the water when he realised the animal had invaded his frame

That's it. Who were the experts unable to identify this? What size was this thing and what type of camera was being used?

Let's have a look at the clearest photograph.

And let's enlarge that somewhat.

It looks rather shiny and plastic-like and those eyes have no "life" in them at all. The distortion some think might be due to the water but I do not think so. If you look we are seeing a rounded body -almost hippo-like. Look at the head and what seem to be two rounded ears. If you look to the right of the Hemedia logo, at an angle toward the head are what look like (large) fingers reflected in the water, but this might just be me.My opinion is that this is not a living creature but rather a toy and the nose/mouth area have been morphed on a computer. It just looks like a hippo toy with elengated nose.There isn't much to the story and if you are looking at the water and want to capture the colour of the water then you ought to see something like this but then we read "the flash went off" -so we have to ask what type of flash was used because there isn't much indication of camera flash here. Unless we can get all the necessary information we are left with two conclusions: someone dropped a hippo toy into the water and it turned up in the wrong place at the right time, or, this is a hoax because toys do not use computer programs to morph themselves.

As one after another member of the AOP Bureau passed away -some were in their 60s though Franklyn A. Davin-Wilson was 43 years of age when he died following an operation- the burden of running the Grey Book Project fell to me.

Notes on research and investigation as well as cases were made in a series of bulky grey covered books. Let's not go into too long a story that I should not tell but I only managed to keep the 1990-1996 Grey Book with pages, charts and much more added to it. By 1990 Grey Book had 'officially' ended though I was called in to offer help or advice in certain cases. These included the attempt by the Uri Geller Magazine to smuggle in "remains of a dead alien found in Isreal" amongst others.

I have been asked though, because no one is getting their hands on the contents of this book which is kept securely locked away unless I need to refer to it, "just what is in the book?" A mess. Seriously, notes written while going up huge conveyer belts, on trains, in cars or scribbled down as things occur or when something pertinent to research or an investigation popped up.